How They're Made

How They're Made: In the photo above, molten bronze is being poured into a plaque mold. This is called sand casting, and it is probably the oldest plaque-making technique. The basic steps, which are performed in a foundry, are as follows:

• Artwork is designed to your requirements and personal preferences.
• A pattern (a rubber-like version of your plaque) is made from the artwork.
• A mold is created by compressing a special sand around that pattern.
• Molten metal is pured into the empty mold cavity and left to cool.
• Your plaque is sandblasted, lettering is detailed, and holes are drilled.
• After painting, all raised areas are sanded to reveal the metal's true color.
• A protective clear-coat is applied.

How They're Made: Engraving a plaque, as pictured above, is accomplished with an industrial CNC milling machine. This is actually a computerized carving or deep-cutting process involving the following basic steps:

• Artwork is designed to your requirements and personal preferences.
• Special software is used to create a 3D map of your plaque's top surface.
• A solid panel of bronze or aluminum is placed into the CNC machine.
• The 3D map is carved into the plaque. Some designs take several hours.
• Your plaque is cleaned, detailed, and prepared for finishing.
• After painting or oxidizing, all raised areas are sanded to reveal the true color of either the bronze or aluminum material.
• A protective clear-coat is applied.

How They're Made: In this photo, plaques are being removed after etching, which is a process for removing certain parts of a metal plaque's top surface. This allows the finest details and smallest lettering of any plaque type. The basic steps in the overall process are as follows:

• Artwork is designed to your requirements and personal preferences.
• Your plaque is coated with an acid-blocking material.
• A photographic process removes this coating from areas to be etched.
• An acid spray bath etches its way into the exposed sections of metal.
• Your plaque is cleaned and prepared for finishing.
• After painting or oxidizing, raised areas are sanded to expose the metal.
• A protective clear-coat is applied.

How They're Made: DuraBronze™ plaques are made in a proprietary process, so we can't reveal every single detail. However, as you can see in the photo above, it involves quite a bit of hands-on fabrication and finishing. Our staff is highly skilled, having honed and perfected their technique over several decades.